“We want to train our students to become citizens of the world...a world that has grown smaller in the last 30 years,” he says.

Many professors agree that to prepare a student adequately for today’s world, the College must strongly encourage some sort of international experience.

“It’s not enough for the world to come digitally or technologically to you. You’ve got to go out and meet the world,” Bhabha says.

Lecturer on the Study of Religion Brian C.W. Palmer ’86 challenges Harvard to provide more funds to facilitate study abroad.

“It’s worrisome that the numbers for study abroad are so low, even though the financial aid resources are clearly not lacking,” he says. “I think it would be good if living in a different society became a norm as much as possible.”

SIZE MATTERS

In an attempt to increase student-faculty interaction, curricular review members have also examined class size at Harvard.

But while administrators stress the importance of student-faculty interaction, the review is unlikely to recommend a major change in the structure of classes at Harvard.

In fact, some faculty say they believe students are largely indifferent to class size.

“Class size is obviously an issue, and we’re obviously aware of the fact,” Harris says. “But you have this peculiar paradox where students complain about these big classes [but still take them].”

Harris cites Moral Reasoning 22, “Justice,” which enrolled over 900 students in the fall semester, as evidence.

“I’m guessing that no matter what we do, there are going to be courses with multiple hundred students—unless you just cap everything, in which case you’ll have a lot of angry students,” he said.

In lieu of increasing the number of smaller classes, a move some say will unreasonably tax the Faculty, the report will recommend that the new curriculum provide students with a variety of pedagogical experiences.

“[Class size is] subject specific, topic specific and theme specific,” Bhabha says. “I think the nature of the class should reflect the nature of the particular subject or theme that is being taught, so it should reflect the intellectual and scholarly content.”

Bhabha says survey courses are better suited to a larger lecture class, while more focused classes are more effective in a smaller setting.